Conventional software applications enable a user to interact with content displayed within a graphical user interface (GUI) via an input device (e.g., keyboard, mouse, etc.). In particular, such software applications include word processing documents, web browsers, Adobe Reader™ and Adobe Acrobat™ (e.g., for viewing Adobe Portable Document Format documents “PDF”), and the like. By using an input device such as a mouse, a user can add to, delete, edit, manipulate, navigate through, etc., the various content displayed by the conventional software applications in a graphical user interface.
More particularly, conventional software applications can also enable a user to navigate to different locations in a network (e.g., local area network “LAN”, the Internet, etc.) or computer system by rendering a uniform resource locator (URL) in the graphical user interface. When a user selects the uniform resource locator (e.g., by clicking on the uniform resource locator in the GUI with via a mouse), a conventional software application will retrieve content associated with the location specified by the uniform resource locator. This is commonly referred to as “hyperlinking” from the present document (word processing document, web browser, PDF document, etc.) to the remote location identified by the uniform resource locator. The content retrieved from the remote location can include data in various formats (e.g., hypertext markup language “HTML” documents, Flash files, PDF documents, etc.), directory information associated with a file system, network drive mappings, and the like.
Generally, a hyperlink is the graphical depiction of the remote location embodied as a uniform resource locator (e.g., “http://www.adobe.com”) in a graphical user interface. Moreover, some conventional software applications have techniques for indicating to a user that a uniform resource locator is a hyperlink by providing a graphical cue. Common graphical cues for indicating hyperlinks in a document include, for example, underlining the uniform resource locator and/or displaying the uniform resource locator in a color distinct from other content in the document.